lostcat:Didn't make it through the article. Don't really care what some columnist in Omaha thinks.

I can understand people in my own generation (and younger) not wanting to have kids. We're all pretty self-centered (can't think of a way to say that that doesn't sound negative, but there you have it). Our childhoods have extended way beyond what previous generations were able to get away with. Video games are the norm for people in their 20s and 30s (I'm in my 40s, and I've spent a solid part of this weekend playing Ingress and Baldur's Gate).

So, why would we want to have to put up with mewling, crying, attention-needing kids? I never wanted a kid, even through my mid 30s. Too much hassle. Too much responsibility. Not enough me time. Not enough time/energy for good sex. Who needs that?

But then I was talking to a neighbor who is in her 60s. Her mother died recently, and she has no husband or children. She looks miserable most of the time I see her. She says that there is nobody left in the world who cares if she lives or dies. She said she never expected that feeling. But now that she has no living family, she feels like a stranger on the planet.

I look at my parents. They are just breaking 70. Their brothers and sisters are dropping like flies. All they have left is me and my sister to care about them, visit them and give them any emotional support.

So, while I understand my friends and peers who think having kids is crazy, I don't know how many of them have really, honestly thought about the end of their lives (who spends time dwelling that anyway?) and considered what this world will feel like when everyone they love is dead, and they have no family left on the face of the earth.

But then, but the time we're that old, Diablo 12 is going to keep your mind off of all that crap, I'm betting.

Pharmdawg:Little kids are constant work and worry, but they're also constant entertainment.

Like when my 2 year old dropped his fork on the floor, then started screaming "fork, fork, fork!"

He couldn't pronounce his "r's"

He ate with a spoon til he was 4.

Like this afternoon when my 16 month old granddaughter was seeing how far she could jam her finger up her nose. Then she went into the living room and decided to play dentist with her mother. I didn't tell my daughter where her daughter's finger had been until midway through the dental exam.

... Take today for instance. I just found out my kid threw out a video game that I hadn't gotten a chance to play yet. I did, however, figure out where all our dish towels were vanishing to. He's been throwing EVERYTHING out when he's done with it.

I've had a few drinks so I'm gonna get a little politically incorrect here. I would like to see productive members of society reproducing at the same level as those who are not productive, who live on welfare and refuse to raise their children properly (i.e. without fathers or supervision). I would like it to be possible for women who get a degree and establish careers also marry and reproduce, as much as those who don't.

If we stopped treating children like property and instead recognized them as full-fledged citizens in their own right, with their own claim to societal resources, this wouldn't be a problem. Assisting in child rearing is something that everyone would do by paying taxes in working in child-support jobs and volunteer positions. But as it stands we hold at most 2 people responsible for essentially 100% of each child's rearing tasks and expenses and we teach parents to refuse help from others on the basis of insufficient genetic relationship.

Didn't make it through the article. Don't really care what some columnist in Omaha thinks.

I can understand people in my own generation (and younger) not wanting to have kids. We're all pretty self-centered (can't think of a way to say that that doesn't sound negative, but there you have it). Our childhoods have extended way beyond what previous generations were able to get away with. Video games are the norm for people in their 20s and 30s (I'm in my 40s, and I've spent a solid part of this weekend playing Ingress and Baldur's Gate).

So, why would we want to have to put up with mewling, crying, attention-needing kids? I never wanted a kid, even through my mid 30s. Too much hassle. Too much responsibility. Not enough me time. Not enough time/energy for good sex. Who needs that?

But then I was talking to a neighbor who is in her 60s. Her mother died recently, and she has no husband or children. She looks miserable most of the time I see her. She says that there is nobody left in the world who cares if she lives or dies. She said she never expected that feeling. But now that she has no living family, she feels like a stranger on the planet.

I look at my parents. They are just breaking 70. Their brothers and sisters are dropping like flies. All they have left is me and my sister to care about them, visit them and give them any emotional support.

So, while I understand my friends and peers who think having kids is crazy, I don't know how many of them have really, honestly thought about the end of their lives (who spends time dwelling that anyway?) and considered what this world will feel like when everyone they love is dead, and they have no family left on the face of the earth.

But then, but the time we're that old, Diablo 12 is going to keep your mind off of all that crap, I'm betting.

"Say that reminds me, how'd you get that kid so darn fast? Me and Dot went in to adopt on account a' somethin' went wrong with my semen, and they said we had to wait five years for a healthy white baby."